National/Regional Parliaments and EU Decision-Making under the New Constitutional Treaty. EIPA Working Paper 2005/W/02

Abstract

[Introduction]. This paper is about the involvement of national and especially regional parliaments in EU decision-making. The focus on regional parliaments is justified by the fact that the relationship between regional parliaments and EU-institutions is hardly studied, although in a substantial number of member states, it are legislative regions and their parliaments that are most obviously confronted with EU legislation. A number of relating questions will be adressed in this paper. The first question is about the actual possibilities national and regional parliaments have to influence European decisions. Secondly we look at the new provisions in the EU Constitutional Treaty: is the role of the national/regional parliaments strengthened and to what extent? Also, are there other possibilities to give parliaments a bigger say in the European decision-making and why are they not adopted by the Convention or by the IGC? And lastly, but very important, what preconditions must be fulfilled (especially by the national/regional parliaments themselves) to fully exploit the provisions and opportunities they have under the current treaties and the new constitution in a constructive way. But we start with some preliminary remarks on the place of national/regional parliaments in the EU multilevel governance system.